


Along for the Ride

by EntreNous



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Adrenaline, First Time, Frottage, M/M, Post-Chosen, Post: s05e22 Not Fade Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-04-08
Updated: 2005-04-08
Packaged: 2017-11-26 23:33:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/655608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EntreNous/pseuds/EntreNous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Xander had never gone back on his word before. But it wasn’t really going back on it so much as sidestepping it, getting on the road and traveling forward with Lindsey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Along for the Ride

**Author's Note:**

> Written for rubywisp.

Sometimes Xander wonders. Wonders if Angel thinks that he went ahead and killed Lindsey, like Angel wanted him to. Just killed him dead, shot through the head, and then went along his merry way, off to do whatever it is that Xanders do when there’s not an apocalypse around or a hero to stick their necks out for. 

Or maybe Angel thinks Xander is the one that got taken out. Wouldn’t have been a stretch, Lindsey taking the gun from his sweaty hand, turning it on him once he saw what Xander was attempting to do through all the trembling and stammering. Xander never has been one for weapons that go bang. Now, a good short axe, that’s more his style. But he gets the feeling that Lindsey grew up going to shooting ranges, one of those kids who had enough guns to make him hope and dream for a gun _rack_. He imagines Angel bowing his head for a moment seriously -- damn shame, losing Xander, a guy who wasn’t handy with a gun or cynical enough to watch his back. But then Angel would move on. After all, there was always more world-saving to be done, more members of the team to go down in the line of fire.

Once in a while Xander guesses that Angel might be the one who’s dead and gone. Not like Angel wasn’t ready to go down fighting, and wasn’t that part of the reason that Xander had stayed on at Wolfram & Hart when he’d swung by on the way back from Africa? After months in the heat, the confusion of multiple languages, and slayers who didn’t want to leave their families, he hadn’t much felt like heading down to Rio for constant Carnival with Willow and Kennedy, or tagging along with Buffy through a hazy tour of the hot night spots in Rome. So he’d thrown his lot in with the hard working, morally ambiguous, mostly-good guys, if only because he could see that there would be opportunities to save people.

Instead Angel had set him up to kill Lindsey. He’d said he’d do it, because if this was really the Mother of All World Endings it was probably time for him to do his part by going a little gray on the ethical spectrum himself. “Can’t end any other way, Xander,” Angel had said when he finished telling him about that last mission, and Xander nodded even though in his head a voice was saying that it could always end lots and _lots_ of different ways.

And wouldn’t you know, it _had_ ended a whole other way. Xander telling Lindsey, blurting out at the last minute what he was supposed to do. Lindsey’s eyes going hard, then speculative as he looked at Xander. “Guess we’ll both need to get out of here, then,” Lindsey said smoothly, and though Xander hadn’t quite thought that far ahead, he realized, yes, good plan, get far, far away from the champion vampire with the vendetta. 

He’d never gone back on his word before. But it wasn’t really going back on it so much as sidestepping it, getting on the road and traveling forward with Lindsey. 

Funny thing though. Out of all of those scenarios -- Xander pulling the trigger, Xander buying the farm, Angel a pile of dust at the end of a dark alley -- well, then, there’s no reason in the world to be heading along the old highway with a guy from Oklahoma who stares at the road with eyes that are bluer than blue, intent as hell, and more than a little dangerous. 

Lindsey’s never asked him why. Why did Xander change his mind, protect Lindsey instead of taking him out. Why Xander got in on the road trip with him instead of heading his own way. So Xander figures that Lindsey’s either come up with his own reason explaining it all, or he doesn’t much care. 

Maybe it’s just that he likes the company.

* * *

It’s been -- days, weeks even. Hard to tell how long that they’ve been driving when Xander asks suddenly, “Do you miss her?” 

“Who?” Lindsey asks as he maneuvers the truck into the next lane.

“Your girlfriend,” Xander clarifies. Lots of short sentences between them, and Xander’s never talked that way with anyone before, but with Lindsey it makes sense. 

Lindsey pauses, and then Xander sees the corners of his eyes crinkle. “You know . . . don’t think so.”

Xander nods, processing that. 

Twenty, forty miles later: “What was her name again?” Xander asks. 

Lindsey looks at him sideways, and then twists the wheel so they end up in the dirt shoulder. Xander keeps his hands on his knees and waits it out while Lindsey watches the road, jaw set and tense. No one passes them by. No one else is on this road.

Finally, Lindsey shakes his head. “For a minute there . . . just couldn’t remember.” And god knows why, but that makes them both grin, and turns out to be reason enough to spring for a motel with two real beds that night instead of staying huddled under separate piles of blankets in the back of the truck. Turns out it’s even reason enough to drink a better bottle of whiskey than they usually buy, drink it up till the bottle’s empty.

They’ve got an inch or two of liquid left when Xander realizes that Lindsey never did tell him the name of his girlfriend. He opens his mouth to ask again, but that’s when he hears Lindsey speaking. “All the . . . women I been with,” Lindsey starts in a low scratchy voice. Then he just shrugs.

Xander takes a pull on the bottle and coughs. “What?”

“All of them wanted something I couldn’t give them,” Lindsey says. He straightens in the ugly patterned easy chair he sits in and frowns down at his stretched blue jeans, brushes them off. Xander nods, because that seems to be that, but then Lindsey looks up all of a sudden. “You don’t,” Lindsey says.

“Don’t what?”

“Want anything from me.”

“Not so much, no,” Xander answers truthfully. He’s foggy-headed, eyelids heavy and body relaxed, but in that moment he feels his muscles tense realizes his fingers have started to tap against the side of the mattress he’s sprawled on. Maybe now Lindsey will ask why -- why Xander left with him, why he’s still traveling with him. Xander figures if Lindsey asks, then he’ll get a chance to figure it out himself.

Xander holds out the bottle, and their fingertips brush when Lindsey takes it from his hand. Lindsey keeps his eyes on Xander as he leans back in his chair, uncurling like a slow-motion film sequence, muscles straining and rearranging under smooth tan skin. 

Xander has to blink and say “Huh, what?” when he figures out Lindsey’s been talking to him. “What?” he asks again when Lindsey shakes his head.

Lindsey’s lips twist into a smile. “Nothin’ that won’t keep.”

* * *

Xander wonders if the explanations and questions and things they maybe do or maybe don’t have to say to each other might not just keep forever. 

Because again and again they follow their same pattern, filling up the tank of the truck and heading out anywhere, most likely covering the same ground as they trace out meandering curves and snake slithering trails along dusty roads and old highways. They’ve settled into this low-level state of vigilance enough that it seems familiar, like a quiet buzz that follows them everywhere and soothes them to sleep. 

But just when Xander decides that there are no signs pointing to danger or even advising watchfulness, just when he thinks that this life on the lam is starting to seem like an idiotic joke, they’re driving one night when Lindsey cusses low. 

Xander looks in the side mirror and sees it – a new dark blue Chevy truck, bearing down hard, closer and closer all the time. 

So. Someone found them out. Someone’s following them. The black thorn guys? Angel’s friends, advisors, and well-wishers? Council members who have a thing or two to say to Xander for realigning himself with Angel’s team? Someone else entirely who Lindsey managed to piss off in some honky-tonk that Xander will _never_ see the inside of because they are _so_ going to die in the next five minutes?

Whoever it is, they’re driving sure and steady, following them through a long stretch of nothing, then two little towns right in a row in the middle of nowhere. Neither of them says a thing. But Lindsey’s hands are tight on the steering wheel, and Xander’s breathing lightly, like someone will be looking to track the sound and he’s trying to throw them off. 

“Fuck it.” Lindsey’s voice is harsh in the silence, and Xander tries not to grip the dash hard. “Fuck it all, we’re pulling over, and those bastards can face us head on and tell us what the hell they’re after.” 

Into the dirt shoulder again, different place, same spray of dust, and they’re both rigid with tension as they get out of the cab, Xander putting one foot in front of the other stiffly until he joins Lindsey at the front of the truck, leaning back against the grill and waiting to see what will happen.

“Should we--” Xander whispers.

“Shut up,” Lindsey hisses.

Xander’s almost ready to turn and yell, asking why the fuck he should shut up when he’s the one who saved Lindsey’s ass and took off with him to go nowhere, and damn it, doesn’t he have the right to ask some questions or call Lindsey on what the hell is going on now?

The truck passes them by.

For a moment neither of them moves, waiting for the thing to go into reverse or hook around and drive back at them. But the truck just keeps going, headed the same way they were going but with a purpose that’s got nothing to do with them. 

Xander risks a sideways glance at Lindsey and Lindsey’s face is impassive, blank. 

Then they’re laughing, gasps and snorts of laughter because no one is after them at all, not that moment, maybe not ever, and they’re so relieved and so freaked out and maybe even more scared because there’s no grim reaper or interrogation team on their tail. 

Xander’s side hurts, he’s laughing so hard, and Lindsey’s laughter is coming out in great big whoops when they start hanging on to each other, holding each other up in the middle of this unexpected craziness. 

And then before you know it, Lindsey is kissing Xander hard, and they've pushed and pulled at each other until they’re on the bed of the truck, grinding away at each other. Both still in their jeans, a little dirty and sweaty, grunting and moving faster and faster because this thing has been building without them even knowing what it is. And the only constant, the only thing that they know, is that Xander didn't want to kill Lindsey, wanted to keep him safe, and that Xander didn’t want anything from Lindsey, except maybe to leave with him, stay with him.

Lindsey’s smaller, of course, but that doesn't stop him from pinning Xander down, from twisting his hips against him sinuously, from thrusting his tongue inside Xander's mouth with combined desperation and sureness of purpose. The truck bed is filthy and a little wet from moisture hanging low in the air, and something bumpy and slightly sharp is sticking into Xander's back. But all he can do is squirm under Lindsey, trying to get closer, urging Lindsey on, and panting helplessly into his mouth as the kisses come harder and faster.

Xander doesn't know what to do, if he should whimper the way he is, if he should let his hands breeze over and then grip Linsey’s ass as hard as he’s doing right now, but he wants them to do something more, whatever that would be. He's grunting, saying "Oh, fuck, Lindsey...please..." 

Lindsey croons, "Sshhh, baby, got you," as he yanks down Xander's zipper, and pulls apart his own button fly until he's stroking them together. And they’re in the middle of nowhere on the bed of a truck that they’ve put miles and miles on, and Xander's eyes get wider and wider when finally he's clutching at the small of Lindsey’s back, crying out at the feel of Lindsey’s hand overcoming even the hard rasp of his zipper, and the roughness of Lindsey’s denim. What they’re doing has all the marks of being uncomfortable, painful even with how hard Lindsey’s pulling them, how their clothes are scratching and catching at skin and hair, and of course there’s that thing sticking into Xander’s back and trying to wedge itself in between his ribs. 

But Lindsey is swearing, so creatively that Xander thinks wildly that after he comes he's going to have to remember to compliment him on that, and they're moving against each other, out of rhythm but somehow in a syncopated pace that's getting them both harder and tighter and needier.

And then Xander hooks one of his legs up around Lindsey's waist, and lets out a low moan. Lindsey doesn’t miss a beat as he says, “Next town we pull into, son, we're going to find us a cheap motel, and I'm going to fuck you so hard you won't be able to walk straight for two days."

Xander pants, "Good...good plan" and gasps, and comes hard, digging his fingernails into Lindsey’s skin, scraping down the small of his back and jerking hips up as much as he can lift them. Lindsey, who's been swearing and bucking and shouting hoarsely, goes silent, pushes and glides against Xander one last time, and comes, his mouth open in a silent cry.

After a moment, Lindsey rolls off of Xander, and they're both lying there trying to catch their breath. Xander feels his skin going red all over, because this is the first time he's ever kissed another guy, never mind done all of _that_ , and he can’t tell what it means because Lindsey’s gone quiet, looking up at the sky and Xander can't tell what he's thinking.

Maybe a minute passes before Xander says, in as casual a voice as he can muster, “Hey, I bet if we had a map, we could find that town and that motel a hell of a lot faster."

Lindsey grins, still looking up in the sky, and says, "Map's in the glove compartment, if you want to go ahead and get on that." 

And they get back in the truck and drive off, this time with a destination and a purpose.


End file.
